


Snowbirds

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 21:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15421527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: He wants to tell Tatsuya that one day they’ll be here together, or maybe back in LA; they’ll play street hockey together all winter wherever they are.





	Snowbirds

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings: Sport-typical injury mentions, OTC drugs

Taiga’s gotten good at waking up just as the plane starts to land, turning off his headphones and pulling them down around his neck, pushing his seat back up and looking out of the window at the scene below. From above, Florida in the daylight looks the same now as it does in the late summer, the way it had the last time Taiga had been out here visiting Tatsuya, when he’d gone up to Chicago afterward and the days had been longer there. It’s cold on the airplane, like the Midwest hasn’t let him go yet. Taiga’s sweater feels almost too thin, but it’s probably going to be redundant when they land. 

Last year they’d spent the holiday break back in LA, sleeping on the beach and playing street hockey and regressing halfway into being the kids they once were with NHL dreams that had seemed surefire, their trajectories much clearer and straighter than they’d turned out to be. The destination’s the same this year but the time they get together is a little longer; their first game back is against each other in Sunrise (though that means one fewer opportunity to see each other). The past won’t be tugging on them from an extra set of places this time, even though it’s always there; they can focus on the present and the future, talk more about when they’re going to meet each other in the Cup finals. 

Goddamn, does Taiga wish they were in the same conference. Same division, even (if realignment could put Florida and Eastern Canada together, they could do it again and put Florida with Chicago; it’s not totally impossible). More games together, more time together outside of hockey. A few days adds up over a span of the years they’ve been together, the years they hopefully still have in the league. 

The beach is coming into focus outside the window. The water’s calm; the sand’s dotted with tourists and locals on vacation, and beyond that lie high-rises and hotels and rental car facilities, cars on the highway (it’s not too crowded, but they’re not yet close enough to see the brake lights if they even can this time of day). The glare of the sun off the Atlantic makes Taiga squint, and he draws a breath. He’s been waiting for what feels like centuries for this; a few more minutes won’t make a difference in the end but goddamn. Tatsuya’s voice on the phone last night, the text he’d sent before takeoff, the last selfie he’d taken, aviator sunglasses askew on his nose, in response to Taiga’s with a snow-covered beanie. It’s still cold, but Taiga pushes up his sleeves to his elbows and tries not to lean forward in his seat.

The person next to him is still sleeping; Taiga leaves it to the flight crew to wake her up as he steps out, carry-on slung over his shoulder. He hates checking baggage and he’s got enough stuff at Tatsuya’s not to, and even if he didn’t he’d rather not waste time at the fucking airport. His phone buzzes in his pocket as he gets off the plane. Walking on the floor of the tunnel to the gate is weird after sitting for so long, even weirder than when he’s been skating all day, and he can’t make his legs move fast enough. He looks at his phone; the text shows in full across the face.

_ I’m at the lower level. _

Taiga does his best not to push through the throngs of people, making his way out of security and around the line to get in, long and full of whining children and frazzled adults and college students who look tired and miserable. God, holiday travel sucks. He speeds up his pace, passing someone who does a double take and normally Taiga would be okay with stopping for fans but not right now.

The air outside the doors is warm on Taiga’s skin; he cuts through the line of people jostling for cabs with an apology repeated in rhythm, and gets a good look around. Fifteen feet to the left, maybe, is Tatsuya’s Lexus, same plates and same scrape on the hubcap, Tatsuya grinning from the driver’s side. 

Taiga opens the back door first to shove his bag inside and then his sweater; when he pulls into the front he wastes no time in leaning over and kissing Tatsuya before he’s even got his seatbelt on. It feels almost redundant for Taiga to say he’s missed Tatsuya, but Tatsuya beats him to the punch.

“I missed you,” he says, when Taiga pulls away to catch his breath. 

There’s no trying to stay cool, nothing hidden or reserved in the statement, a softness in his voice that creeps in sometimes, mostly when he’s half-asleep. Fuck, does Taiga want to kiss him again, right now. He leans across the console again, but Tatsuya doesn’t let him get away with much, and when the car behind them honks Taiga sighs and reaches for the seatbelt.

His hand finds its way to Tatsuya’s knee, and Tatsuya covers it with his own before he has to use both to turn the car. 

He’s got the windows halfway down; there’s some salt on the windshield but it’s from the ocean and not the snowy roads, and for a second Taiga feels a little ashamed that the snow’s his first instinct. But that thought floats away easy as he looks outside the window, the route between the airport and Tatsuya’s house cutting a slightly familiar path, a part of Fort Lauderdale that he wouldn’t say he knows well, but it’s something close to that. And beside him, Tatsuya’s hand comes down from the wheel to grasp his again. 

Taiga turns on the radio; he’s expecting sports talk but the dial’s on something playing an overwrought pop rendition of a Christmas song. He turns the volume up.

“Not your usual pick.”

“Variety is the spice of life,” says Tatsuya, and he begins to hum along with the chorus.

Something inside of Taiga feels settled, the salt on the window and the warm air and the sun this high in the sky this late in the day, being with Tatsuya and hearing the obnoxious holiday radio spots and driving past houses with full sets of neon lights flashing in the day. 

*

There’s a park by Tatsuya’s building with an asphalt basketball court, and they’ve played street hockey on far worse approximations of rinks, torn-up sidewalks and half-paved blacktop, the swing set area of a playground where all the swings have been pulled from the chains leaving only a skeleton, a makeshift set of tiny goalposts and a crossbar above their heads. This is small but it will do, enough room to  board each other into the chain link fence, Taiga getting used to the feeling of the wheels of his inline skates beneath his feet, always quick but not quick enough. He wants to tell Tatsuya that one day they’ll be here together, or maybe back in LA; they’ll play street hockey together all winter wherever they are. 

Tatsuya skates literal circles around him, smooth moves and quick pinpoint turns, snapping Taiga back into focus and making him turn around and fire a quick shot off that Tatsuya lunges for but whistles over his wrist. He swears; it would have cracked his wrist and he knows it but he still would have stopped it at that cost if he could, still won’t back off or let down. The puck rolls into their approximation of the goal area; Tatsuya goes after it and flips it up on his stick.

“Your point.”

“You’re still winning.”

“You’re not making it easy,” Tatsuya says, and then he darts around Taiga, pushing the puck ahead and not waiting for an imaginary partner or to deke out an imaginary goalie. He doesn’t wind up; he just takes a wrister but Taiga’s fast enough to chip it away before he can get the shot off. The puck’s closer to Tatsuya, skating backwards now, the ease that brings back the way he used to play D and the way he still kind of wants to (because D-men get more minutes, he says, with a smile twitching on his mouth). 

This time he gets the shot off; Taiga’s hit is a second too late and neither of them is looking at the puck as it goes in, Taiga pushing Tatsuya against the fence again and Tatsuya trying to grapple and gain the upper hand, wrestle with the gloves still on. There’s a group of kids with a basketball looking at them; they should probably go, but Taiga’s going to wring out another few seconds of it if he can.

*

Tatsuya doesn’t reach for the ibuprofen immediately after they get back, only a couple of hours later when Taiga’s starting to feel a little sore. He’d seen the bruises streaked across Tatsuya’s legs, the smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes, the stiffness he carefully pretends isn’t in his legs, but it’s just the usual hockey player bullshit. It’s not like the beginning of the summer and the concussion Tatsuya was pretending wasn’t still a problem, the fights they’d had about that, the way Taiga had worried after every hit more than usual until they’d Skyped and Tatsuya had looked better than even he would be able to pretend to be. Tatsuya catches Taiga looking, and Taiga doesn’t follow the urge to turn away.

Tatsuya holds out the bottle and Taiga takes it, washing the stale taste down with his still hot cup of coffee. Tatsuya had promised they’d make cookies together later, and they have the ingredients, but Taiga’s willpower is fading. A nap would be nice, and maybe a movie later (or half of one, whatever they can stay awake for). Taiga’s arm curls around Tatsuya’s waist; Tatsuya’s couch is large enough for them to both lie on it together without it being too tight a squeeze; it goes with absolutely none of his other furniture but it’s a worthwhile tradeoff for this. Even as mild as it is here, it’s not too warm to snuggle up.

They end up making cookies anyway, using some shortbread recipe Tatsuya had found on the internet. They don’t have cookie cutters so they use knives, making stars and letters and triangles, and then their jersey numbers and after that a horrible approximation of the Team USA logo that Tatsuya threatens to post on Instagram. 

Somehow Tatsuya attracts mess and chaos like a human entropy machine, the way he always has, from scraped knees and scuffs on the wheels of his inline skates when they were kids up through the vortex of emotions surrounding him as a teenager and the way he’s still a quick trigger on the ice, gloves flying off like they can’t stand his hands. There’s flour all over him, caked on his fingers and under his nails, spread in streak and patterns on his black t-shirt , speckled on his forearms (and this is as good a time as any to marvel at the glow of the sun on his skin, still paler than Taiga’s is after a week at home but darker at this very moment, the way the flour pops against it). 

“Shit,” says Taiga.

The cookies are in the oven; he’s got flour all over his hands and he’s trying to ignore what’s crumbling from Tatsuya’s hands onto the floor he’d just swept earlier and it’s easier than his instincts to keep things neat would usually let it. But that’s because it’s Tatsuya, and he’s always the exception. He looks up at Taiga, eye smiling even though his mouth is neutral. Taiga reaches up to cup Tatsuya’s cheeks in his face, fingers brushing over impossibly smooth skin. Tatsuya looks like he’s about to ask if Taiga’s going to kiss him or not, but he waits. Patient, for once, and Taiga’s already smiling by the time their lips actually meet. 

Tatsuya’s hands come to rest on Taiga’s waist, thumbs brushing over his hipbones under his t-shirt, and if they were in a more open space Taiga would lift Tatsuya up--not a good idea here where Tatsuya’s elbow is knocking into the mixing bowl and he’s pushed up against the counter, and the adrenaline from thinking about this surges in his veins and he has to step back and take a breath. 

“What?” says Tatsuya, soft, and he already knows what. 

“I love you.” The words spill out of him, like Tatsuya’s knocked into the mixing bowl of his mouth, and he wants to say it better. “I love you.”

This time it’s slower and clearer, and Tatsuya’s already smiling at him. His heart is beating faster than it had the first time he’d told Tatsuya like this, than a shootout at the Olympics, fifth round, elimination game. It’s not because there’s much of a risk involved this time, not really. Tatsuya knows already, to the fullest extent, and Taiga’s not worried he’s not reminding him enough. 

“I love you, too,” Tatsuya says. 

Taiga’s smile is stretching even wider; Tatsuya slowly leans back in.

“I love you,” he repeats, before he bridges the last centimeter or so. 

He tastes like cookie dough, grains of sugar on his teeth; he smells like the salty air coming in through the window, not just like home but exactly like it anyway.


End file.
